The invention relates to a garment comprising an absorbent section and a waist belt attached directly or indirectly thereto, said waist belt having two belt portions extending on either side of said absorbent section for securing to each other around a wearer of the garment, as defined in the preamble of claim 1.
Absorbent garments of the above mentioned type are well known in the art.
The type of garment in question has a belt attached integrally with the absorbent garment portion and requires that, after fastening the belt around the waist with the attached end at the back of the wearer, the end not attached to the belt section should be passed through the wearer""s legs and attached by some means of releasable attachment to the belt at the front. The means of releasable attachment could be a hook and loop (also called touch and close) type fastening means, for instance such as sold under the name xe2x80x9cVELCROxe2x80x9d.
Published application WO-A-91/08725 discloses an example of such a garment in one embodiment.
One of the problems recognised with such garments is the problems of handling the belt portions which project from either side of the absorbent portion of the integrated garment in such a way so as to be able to quickly and accurately take hold of the belt portions and fasten them together. However the belt material still needs to be cheap since it is integrated with a garment which together with the belt form a disposable unit.
Where the problem of incontinence is involved, it will be appreciated that persons suffering from this problem are often old and have physical handicaps of various types. As a consequence, they have more difficulty fastening the belt by themselves and often require the assistance of personnel for fitting the garments.
Thus there is a need to find for a solution which allows easy and correct fitting of the absorbent garment, particularly in the case of handicapped persons.
The aforementioned problems of handling are solved by the features of the belt according to claim 1.
The resultant belt of the garment is one which is not prone to excessive wrinkling which could be painful for the wearer and not too stiff which causes problems of cutting and abrasion itself. Additionally, a garment is achieved with a belt which can be made cheaply and is particularly suitable for adult incontinence applications.
Preferred features of the belt are defined in the dependent claims.
The flexure-resistance of a material sample is measured by its peak bending stiffness. Thus as defined in claim 1 and as disclosed in the sample testing method of EP-A-0 336 578, said testing equipment, procedure and calculations hereby being incorporated by reference, the peak bending stiffness is determined by a test modelled after the ASTM D 4032-82 CIRCULAR BEND PROCEDURE, the procedure being considerably modified and performed as indicated in EP-A-0 336 578.
The CIRCULAR BEND PROCEDURE is a simultaneous multi-directional deformation of a material in which one face of a specimen becomes concave and the other face becomes convex. The CIRCULAR BEND PROCEDURE gives a force value related to flexure-resistance, simultaneously averaging stiffness in all directions.
The tests were carried out on the belt of the present application using the apparatus from EP-A-0 336 578 necessary for the CIRCULAR BEND PROCEDURE which is a modified Circular Bend Stiffness Tester, having the following parts:
A smooth-polished steel plate platform which is 102.0xc3x97102.0xc3x976.35 millimetres having an 18.75 millimeter diameter orifice. The lap edge of the orifice should be at a 45 degree angle to a depth of 4.75 millimeters.
A plunger having an overall length of 72.2 millimeters, a diameter of 6.25 millimeters, a ball nose having a radius of 2.97 millimeters and a needle-point extending 0.88 millimeter therefrom having a 0.33 millimeter base diameter and a point having a radius of less than 0.5 millimeter, the plunger being mounted concentrically with the orifice and having equal clearance on all sides. It should be noted that the needle point is merely to prevent lateral movement of the test specimen during testing. Therefore, if the needle-point significantly adversely affects the test specimen (for example by puncturing an inflatable structure), than the needle-point should not be used. The bottom of the plunger should be set well above the top of the orifice plate. From this position, the downward stroke of the ball nose is to the exact bottom of the plate orifice. A force-measurement gauge and more specifically an Instron inverted compression load cell. The load cell has a load range of from 0.0 to 2000.0 grams. An actuator, and more specifically the Instron Model No. 1122, having an inverted compression load cell. The Instron 1122 is made by the Instron Engineering Corporation, Canton, Mass.
It should be noted that, whilst the term xe2x80x9cabsorbent garmentxe2x80x9d has been used particularly in conjunction with incontinence, and particularly adult incontinence, the invention is not limited to this particular use or any particular size or type of absorbent garment implied thereby and it is clear for the skilled man that such belts could be used with baby""s or children""s nappies (diapers) for example, merely by adapting the dimensions appropriately.